Instead of studying the night before the test, I became fascinated by Dalton Trumbo’s anti-war classic “Johnny Got His Gun”. I read the whole thing that night.
Although I did score a 40, I would suggest avoiding stream-of-consciousness novels :>0.
Seriously, though the usual topic content on the MCAT verbal section is graduate level work on topics likely to be unfamiliar to the average applicant–i.e., the liberal arts. I particularly remember some sections on literary criticism and musical history. The level of writing in Time is multiple grade levels below that which you’ll be expected to master…the Economist is more like it.
I think the really important thing, though, is time…practice with commercial sources until you feel like you can give each passage a serious reading with enough time left over to give each question your full attention. Understand that this is NOT a test of your knowledge…they specifically design the passages to be of interest to as few applicants as is humanly possible. If multiple test-takers have knowledge of the subject matter discussed in an item (say, the symbolic significance of the white whale in Moby Dick), standarization becomes much more difficult.
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